Left News and Views

At a gathering after dinner with some good friends over the weekend – friends whose views are radically different from mine – the conversation turned to politics, something we generally try to avoid out of respect for one another. I wouldn’t be wrong, however, to say that they are avoiding it much more now that George Bush and his administration are being proven to be a bunch of bunglers.

As these are such good friends, we all put aside our political beliefs in favor of our common enjoyment of one another’s company. Perhaps this how Mary Matalin and James Carville do it.

When we do stray into the political arena, it never ceases to amaze me how supporters of Bush show that they are absolute masters of the circular argument. It makes me wonder if Fox Noise has a primer in the circular argument or if that network just dulls the senses to the point where otherwise very intelligent people don’t recognize the fallacy of this logic.

All circular arguments have this characteristic: the proposition to be proved is assumed at some point in the argument. For example: Everybody believed Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, so we were justified in our preemptive invasion to protect our country and our allies.

The fallacy of that argument, of course, is that everybody did not believe Iraq had WMD. I didn’t nor did countless others around the world. And, as it turns out, nor did our intelligence agencies. But that doesn’t stop supporters of Bush’s war from continuing to use this argument as a justification for the war.

And the real problem with the circular argument is that there is no way to use logic to refute the conclusion of the proponents since they don’t recognize the basic fallacies. Bush and company have become masters of the circular argument.

In commenting on the attempts by Congress to introduce a resolution of no confidence in Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, Bush said Monday: “This process has been drug out a long time, which says to me it’s political. There’s no wrongdoing. . . . And therefore, I ascribe this lengthy series of news stories and hearings as political.”

There are two examples of circular logic in this one statement. First of all, in saying “This process has been drug out a long time, which says to me it’s political,” Bush is implying that the Democratically controlled Congress is deliberately dragging out the investigations into Gonzalesgate for political reasons.

In reality, the tactics of the White House to withhold documents and block the testimony of key witnesses have been the underlying causes for the delay in concluding the investigations of the House and Senate Judiciary Committees.

The logical argument would be: “Our delaying tactics have caused this process to drag out for a long time, which would lead one to believe that we care more about politics than the rule of law.”

In the very next sentence, Bush continues to employ his circular logic. The “lengthy series of news stories and hearings” are political because “there’s no wrongdoing.” There are already instances of wrongdoing that the investigations have uncovered. The fact that the White House is blocking access to the documents is hampering the ability of the committees to determine how extensive it is.

The false premise that there is no wrongdoing can only lead to a false conclusion.

But, as I have said, there is no way to logically rebut a circular argument, so it works beautifully for Bush and his supporters.